OTHER VIEWS
The Sweet Sound Of Zmirot
Jerusalem
wilight is on its way, that
ephemeral time between day
and night, light and dark.
The air is cool and I try to
avoid the puddles as I make my way
through the stone corridors of the
Old City.
It is Shabbat afternoon and all is
quiet; the light begins to fade from
the sky and I quicken my pace and
arrive at the Western Wall just in time
to make it for Minchah, the afternoon
prayer. The women's section is the
emptiest I have ever seen it, and I eas-
ily secure myself a place to stand
beside the giant, ancient stones. I
open my siddur (prayer book) and
T
Rachel Kohn of West Bloomfield, a
2002 graduate of Yeshivat Akiva in
Southfield, is studying in Israel at
Michlelet Orot. Her e-mail address is
Dragyn84@aol.com
ROCKAWAY from page 30
of Israelis living in pre-1967 Israel.
Over the last 20 years, the gap
between the rich and poor has grown
dramatically and 25 percent of Israeli
children, numbering 500,000, now
live below the poverty line.
Anyone visiting outlying communi-
ties in the southern part of the country
would think they were in the Third
World. They would find themselves in
places with huge unemployment, few
cultural and social institutions, little
for young people to do, and among a
depressed and despairing population
with little hope for the future.
This is not the way it was supposed
to be. We expected more from the
Jewish state and its leaders.
So who is to blame for this failure?
Israel has dynamic, creative and talent-
ed people in every area of endeavor but
one: our political life. Because the gov-
ernment controls so much of what hap-
pens in the country, in education,
health and social welfare, the major
fault for the deterioration in the quality
of our lives lies in the political sphere.
For the past two decades, inept, self-
seeking and even corrupt politicians,
who care more about their careers and
selfish parochial interests than they do
about the nation, have proven a curse
for the nation. Recent exposes show that
criminal elements have influenced the
political process and even reached into
the highest levels of the government.
This situation is worrisome to say the
least. Some weeks ago, after reading about
2/28
2003
32
begin to daven.
• From the mosque above me,
perched upon the Temple Mount,
comes the low, sonorous call to
prayer. The desert hills outside of
Jerusalem seem to respond to the lone
voice as minarets for miles around
echo the wind-born wail. It is like the
call of horns on the hilltops during
the battles of ancient times. I see oth-
ers looking up from their siddurim as
the voices rise and fall.
The sound that surrounds me takes
my mind back through history, from
the present conflict to the centuries
before, years of oppression at the
hands of Ottoman rulers; even before
that, to the Babylonians who exiled us
and the nations that surrounded the
kingdom of the Jews from all sides
and waited like vultures for it to fall.
As the mosques fall silent, a new
voice arises. Calm and steady at first,
it soon erupts into a clamorous
the newest political scandal, I asked one
of my classes at Tel-Aviv University that
given the state of our nation, if any of
them planned to leave the country after
they received their degrees.
Surprisingly, only three out of 30
students raised their hands. Then one
For the past two
decades, inept, self-
seeking and even cor-
rupt politicians, who
care more about their
careers and selfish
parochial interests than
they do about the
nation, have proven a
curse for the nation.
of them asked me, "Why do you con-
tinue to stay here." I answered, "I stay
because of you."
At that moment, my concern for
Israel's future lessened, for I felt that
these students and others like them
could and would turn things around.
Presently, we might not be a light unto
the gentiles or the Jews, but I have
faith that this next generation will keep
the light from totally fading away. Cl
there is singing. The sun is
cacophony. The bells of the
going
down and, as the
churches are ringing, first only
Shabbat
begins to take its
a few, then a multitude all at
leave, the zmirot (songs) of
once. They seem unusually
the boys at Yeshivat HaKotel
loud today, strangely menac-
and the other yeshivot
ing. Mixing in with the din
throughout the Jewish
are the cries of a toddler look-
Quarter fill the air with sweet,
ing for her mother; and I see
inspiring music and hope.
RAC HEL
in my mind's eye the
In these days of uncertain-
KO HN
Crusades, the Spanish
ty,
when the enemy seems to
Inquisition and the most
Sp ecial
be
on
our very doorstep and
recent purgatory of the Jewish
Comm entary
life as we know it could
nation, the Holocaust.
change at any second, it is
As it says in the Passover
Hagaddah, "In every generation, there important for the Jewish people to
take courage from their history: the
rises up a foe to destroy us." The
triumphs, the survivals, and the undy-
bells, one by one, are stilled and the
ing strength and continuity.
child ceases to cry. I wait with trepi-
God has blessed us as His chosen
dation in this pregnant silence, siddur
people; we must cleave to our her-
in hand, in awe of the foreign sounds
itage and history and know that no
and the collective memories that they
matter who rises against us, we will
arouse.
be singing zmirot to HaShem in the
Finally, starting out faint as a whis-
end.
per and vague as a passing dream,
❑
MEDOFF from page 31
stronger privilege to join the negotia-
tion table for dividing the spoils of war
once it was over. However, since
Zionism was not a fighting partner —
suffering victims in a battle — it had
no escape but to offer up human
beings, under any name, to raise the
number of victims, which they could
then boast of at the moment of
accounting."
Perhaps sentiments of this sort were
common within Abbas' circle of gradu-
ate students in the Soviet Union in the
1970s. But in the Free World, such
propaganda has never been accepted as
serious scholarship.
In most Western countries,
Holocaust deniers have been treated as
pariahs. In Canada and many
European countries, Holocaust denial
is a criminal offense. In New Zealand,
Canterbury University recently issued
an apology for having accepting a mas-
ter's thesis denying the Holocaust,
while the French Minister of
Education revoked a doctoral degree
that was awarded to a Holocaust-
denier by the University of Nantes. A
Polish university professor who denied
the Holocaust was suspended from his
position. The Japanese publisher
Bungei Shunju shut down one of its
magazines for printing an article deny-
ing the Holocaust.
International pressure compelled
Croatian president Franjo Tudjman to
publicly retract statements in his book
doubting that the Holocaust had taken
place. Austrian Freedom Party leader
Jorg Haider was ostracized by the
international community for his
remarks praising members of the SS, as
was French politician Jean Marie Le
Pen, for questioning the existence of
the gas chambers and belittling the sig-
nificance of the Holocaust.
A recent poll found 64 percent of
Americans believe world leaders should
likewise refuse to meet with Abbas.
Yet some in the news media have
treated Abbas with kid gloves, to say
the least. The official BCC News
Profile of Abbas reports, "A highly
intellectual man, Abbas studied law in
Egypt before doing a Ph.D. in
Moscow. He is the author of several
books." The New York Times recently
characterized Abbas as "a lawyer and
historian ... He holds a doctorate in
history from the Moscow Oriental
College; his topic was Zionism."
Neither the BBC nor the Times have
offered any further explanation as to
the contents of Abbas' writings.
Bestowing the title "historian" upon
Mahmoud Abbas awards his writings a
stature they do not deserve, and deals a
grievous insult to every genuine histo-
rian.
If Abbas is elevated to the post of
prime minister of the Palestinian
Authority, not only the media but also
the entire international community
will be confronted with the question
of whether Abbas deserves to be treat-
ed any differently from Tudjman,
Haider, and Le Pen. ❑